JEPPE KIRK BONDE | Copy Trading Secrets

In this episode i sit down with Jeppe Kirk Bonde, one of eToro’s most copied investors. Jeppe has achieved 25% average annual return since 2013 with over $100 Million invested by copiers. He is helping 25,000+ copiers and 300,000 followers to achieve world-class returns.

Jeppe originally thought about a career in politics like his father, a European Parliament leader. He shifted gears during his master’s degree to focus on finance. As a management consultant, he honed his skills valuing companies for big clients, which gave him a sharp edge when he started investing his own money. Disillusioned by high-fee bank funds and poorly diversified pensions, he scouted platforms and landed on eToro. By 2018, he quit consulting to focus on eToro full-time, eventually becoming one of the platform’s top investors.

His process blends hard data—financial statements, industry metrics—with real-world insights. For example, his deep dive into Meta taught him about social media advertising, which he then applied to other investments. He’s sector-agnostic, driven by curiosity, whether it’s researching steel production or spotting trends like Aperol Spritz’s rise in Italy.

Copy trading lets beginners mirror the portfolios of seasoned investors like Jeppe. On eToro, you can start with a demo account, play with $100,000 in virtual funds, and then invest real money—sometimes as little as $500, though copying Jeppe requires $US20,000.

His investment philosophy channels Warren Buffett’s value investing: buy companies worth more than their price suggests and hold them long-term, ideally forever. He dislikes dividends, preferring companies that reinvest profits or use buybacks for better capital allocation.

His portfolio spans 50-60 stocks and is diversified across geographies, industries, and business models to manage risk. He avoids leverage, shorting, and day trading, focusing instead on stable, long-term growth.

He shared a humbling lesson from investing in a Russian gas field, expecting a natural gas boom, only to lose out due to sanctions. His aerospace and defense bets offset the loss, but it taught him to spread investments across regions. During COVID, he acted fast, consulting doctors in his family and pivoting to work-from-home stocks.

For new investors consideringcopy trading, Jeppe advises starting with eToro’s demo account to test the waters. Look at a popular investor’s track record, communication style, and portfolio fit. Diversify by copying a few investors or mixing in ETFs and stocks. Most importantly, understand the risks -leverage can wipe you out, and even conservative portfolios aren’t immune to shocks.

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS AFTER THIS BRIEF MESSAGE

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Phil: Phil Jeppe leads over 25,000 copiers and manages more than $100 million in assets under copy. That's a really interesting concept. Assets under copy, a new investing term AUC. He has a compounded return of 1400 33% over 12 years compared to the S&P 500s, 305% in the same period. Take that index funds. And we're here today to talk about global markets, long term investing and the art of copy trading. So let's dig back a little bit into your past. What led you to this career in investing and taking what I guess is, um, a leadership role?

Jeppe: Well, so all the way back, my dad, he was a politician, a leader of a political party in the European, uh, parliament. So I sor of thought I would going into politics. Then I studied business and politics in my education. But then I sort of figured out the power was all in finance. So for my masters I switched to finance and then I started work as a management consultant. And then as a management consultant, uh, I was advising many big clients. I was doing lots of valuations, calculating the value of companies and then I wanted to invest money because I was making more money than I was spending. And then I looked at what my bank was offering and I was very unimpressed. They had very high fees for their own funds and some of those funds were investing in other funds that also had high fees. So it's really A terrible deal. Our company pension fund was also quite bad, I think. Very high fees, only investing in Danish companies and bonds. So it was like, that's very poorly diversified and with high fees. So I can just definitely do better than that. Then I compared all the different platforms, all the different brokers on how good is their app and their website and their fees and how is the platform developing over time. And then I picked out Etoro as number one for me. And then I started investing on Etoro. And then Etoro got this feature where you can copy other users. And then because my investments were doing very well, some people started copying me. Then some of my friends and family started copying me and more people started copying me. And then, oh, now 100 people are copying me. Oh, now a thousand people are copying me. And then, uh, in 2018, I decided to quit consulting to focus 100% on managing my money on Etoro. Then I hired a small team to help me, and then one year later I was number one on the platform. And then it just sort of kept growing from there.

Phil: What kind of journey was it between being a management consultant and an investor? Professional investor. I mean, did it take a lot of time to work out how the Game M worked?

Jeppe: No, I mean, I knew exactly what I was doingactly at the moment. I started because I already had investment university education and I had intern in and investment bank as well. So I had quite a good idea of the academic basis before starting investing. So I didn't sort of learn as I go. And also I invested in companies that, uh, already knew quite well and did extensive research into. So, uh, it was not really much of a jump. It's like the same process I would use to value a company for a client. Uh, like a bank, I would just use to value companies for making my own investments.

Phil: It's an interesting experience, isn't it? Uh, management consulting. I've had a bit of experience recently with some friends who work in that business. It's something that I've never really seen before, but management consultants, actually they're employed by some of the biggest firms in the world, like McKenzie's and Pricewaterhousec Coopers and so forth, to go in and advise on how a company should maximize their returns. Does it give you any kind of inside knowledge about how companies work and has it benefited you in terms of investing?

Jeppe: Yeah, it benefited me immensely. I was lucky. We had some amazing partners that really took time to educate as well. But we also got thrown in on the deep end. So to say you come into A company that you don't necessarily know much about in an industry you don't know much about. And three weeks later, you're supposed to really understand this company well. And you can only do that by really sort of having the right processes, like, let me memorize all of these numbers, let me memorize all of these names, let me quickly learn all these things, let me go through all these documents, interview all these people until you have a sort of good understanding of it, and then you can start to sort of support with delivering some projects quickly there. So it is a great way to get thrown into different industries, different

00:05:00

Jeppe: companies, and get an understanding of which challenges are, uh, sor. Every company has these challenges. Which ones are like, right, that's the only companies in this industry. And like, you're the only company with this challenge that's unique to you. So I think it's a great, great place to start your career.

Phil: So what is the methodology that you employ in your investing style?

Jeppe: So I have investment analytics and valuation framework that I've been building on through my whole career where I value companies. And So I have 2,000 companies that I retrie data on automatically and value automatically, and then 200 that I do more manual adjustments for. And then there are S60 that I have invested in. And then that's sort of the process. And then whenever I've analyzed a company really in detail, I've learned something new. There's like something unique and something really to learn from every single company. When I have, for instance, all the way back invested in Facebook or metas, it's called today. And I went, uh, a really, really deep analysis of that company. I didn't just learn like, wow, I think actually Mark Zuckerberg is going to make great acquisitions. I think this is a company that's really going to be big one day. I also learned about social media advertising. It's like, oh, it looks like it's the smart companies that are already using a lot of social media advertising. Maybe I should include that when I'm looking at other companies in the future. And so sort of from every company, if you pick something up like that, you can use that. Then when you're analyzing other companies and then over many iterations, the valuation models just get better and better.

Phil: So your valuation models, are they based on, uh, company metrics on their released reporting?

Jeppe: Yeah. So financial statement data and all sorts of other data I can get my hands on for different companies. For every company, financial statement data is important, basically, but for many companies it'll be different data that's important. If you have like a mining company, it might be very important what kind of reserves and resources they have, but that's not important for a hotlesel company that might be very important what kind of properties they actually have and for another one, like what specific outlook you have for that technology in the long term. So it's very different sort of what's important. And for some things you can have some very solid numbers that you have been used in the same way for many years. But for other things I will need to come up with a probability for something like what's the probability that China's going to blockade Taiwan? Like uh, you can't go out and get the exact number from that. There's nobody who's seen a million worlds and can come and tell you, oh, it happened in 330,000 of those. So there you have to be more like right, find some other ways to get to some number there to still assess it so you're using it. And it's very important to use some of those numbers as well that you can't just write that as the same number that's been used. In the same way you have to be willing to put probabilities and numbers on things that are fusszy and in the future and not easy to get.

Phil: So it sounds like that you cover a lot of sectors. Your re a bit sector agnostic. Would that be the case?

Jeppe: Yeah, there's a little bit of a bias towards industries that I worked in as a consultant and then there's some other ones that I've just found very interesting and some are probably just in there sort of not by chance, but sort of like I'm looking at one company but they have some interesting suppliers. So that gets me into another rabbit hole and then I end up with something there and ultimately there. There's no industry or something that I wouldn't be interested in deep diving on. I'm very curious by nature. If I look around and I see anything, I don't know how it's made or then I just will research it. Like oh, I like to see like oh, paint, okay, that's painted. I know what paint is made. Like, oh, that's made of steel. I know how you make steel. And even when I'm out, you know, on a weekend or something, if I see some new drink or something, oh, I wonder how much money they are making. Oh, maybe they're from a listed company. It's sort of uh, just chasing that curiosity all the time.

Phil: So it's really important, isn't it? I mean this is something I really try and bang on about a lot when I'm talking to listeners and viewers is that investing in a company actually requires a lot of work, a lot of hard work, a lot of research and you've actually got a passion for it. You've got a passion for it, haven't you?

Jeppe: Oh, definite, definitely. I think it's very, very interesting line I of worked and it's a big. There'there other professions that have this as well. When I was a student I was just learning and learning and learning and then you have to pass an exam once in a while. When I was a management consultant again you're just learning and learning and learning and then you have to deliver a PowerPoint presentation once in a while. Here I'm learning and learning and learning and have to click the buy button once in a while. And there others that have that. One of my best friends, he's a uh, professor at a university and he's also just researching all the time and once in a while writing an article. I'm like ah, there some you have that, I guess as a podcast host as well that you can sort of dive into topics you're interested about, listen to people talk about that and really, really uh, deliver your presentation but also enjoy learning along the way.

Phil: I know, it's fantastic, isn't it? It's the curiosity element of it and it's so important in investing. So how do companies come within your ken, within your view? What's the top of your funnel look like?

Jeppe: Um, it can really come from all sorts of directions. Sometimes I get asked a question by a copy on Etoro about some company that, I don't know, maybe they're working in that company or uh, sometimes it's a very small company, there's no way I could invest in it or a startup or something. Other times, yeah, that's kind of interesting with that company. Let me look more at that then in reviewing that company I might be looking at their suppliers and then I find the supplier. Oh, that looks like very cool supplier. And then

00:10:00

Jeppe: from all so direction in my own life as well. Once, uh, many, many years ago I was out in I guess Italy and I saw everybody drinking the April spritz and I was like I m wonder if this is uh, going to be like uh, having staying power like the gin and tonic or is it going to go away ah, soon like the espresso martini. And then I went around and asked different bartenders what they thought of this drink in different countries. And I was like, ah, ah. Then, then I made an investment based off of that. And then that went okay. And so you can get the ideas from really, really anywhere. And, um, friends, copiers, and my own lifestyle. And then just if there is something that's big and it's on the news or it's some very smart people are talking about or something, then I might also spend some time looking into it. And from that might come some investment ideas as well.

Phil: It's, uh, interesting. After this interview, we're heading off to an Italian restaurant for an aperol spritz. I'll consider that research. Okay, so it sounds like it's not just about the numbers for you because you're looking at some of the more intangible aspects of a company as well. Is that correct?

Jeppe: It's the real world. And the numbers, they have too. I prefer when someone says, how much do you like chocolate? Instead of them saying, oh, I think it's fantastic and I think it's great. I'm like, right, fantastic and great. I can't really compare which one you like more than I prefer. Then you say like, right, okay. In terms of flavor, you think it's an 8 on that scale in terms of that. And so in the same way I like to take the fluffy stuff. How much do you like the haircut of the CEO? Give it on a scale from 1 to 10, then I can use it better for calculations. And so I take anything and then I assign numbers to it. And so it's definitely all about numbers, but the numbers are supposed to reflect reality. And there are other times as well. I remember in one, uh, consulting project, I asked for some numbers, and I was asked, do you want the one that we, we use internally or the one we show the investors? And I was like, ah, ah, okay, those are not the same. So then you have to understand that what's the underlying reality beneath those numbers? How are those numbers produced? What is actually. Can you actually. And very oftentime you see someone post some chart with some headline like, that's not what that chart shows at all. Like, you can't infer anything about that from that chart. So you have some numbers in there. They'sort of correct numbers. They just don't tell the story you think they do.

Phil: So the numbers that you collect, do you have like a spreadsheet that you. Everything goes into, and there's a kind of a scoring system, and you come up with an end score to inform you're investing?

Jeppe: Yes, I have a very Big tool that I've created over the years that takes all of this in and then assigns weights to everything and multiplies it up and gives me a lot of different views on the world and a lot of ultimate valuations of companies based off of how they'll perform in many different scenarios.

Phil: Track your investments like a pro Share site is Investopedia's number one portfolio tracker for DIY investors. Simplifying your finances. Get four months free on an annual premium plan@share.com sharesforbeginners. Okay, well, let's have a look into how copy trading works. Give us an overview about how someone who is just becoming interested in investing and wants to investing. How can they start copy trading and what's involved?

Jeppe: Yeah, so the typical process is that people, they start with downloading the Etoro app or on the Etoro website, they start an account. You can start with a demo account with 100,000 fix dollars and then you can make all your mistakes, click the wrong button and whatnot without wasting any money, and then deposit your real money and start using it for real. Then on Etoro you can click to buy oil or Apple stocks or Facebook, uh, or BHP or whichever one you like. But you can also copy about 3,000 other users. And then if you click uh, my face and click copy or click some other popular investors face and click copy, then you can pick an amount you want to copy with and then that amount is invested to the extent possible, proportionally in the same way that that investor has invested. So that means that then after a few days, if it's on the weekend, most markets are closed, then you'll have the same proportions invested as me for that amount. And then if I do well, then you do well. And if I do poorly, then you do poorly. And then uh, you're sort of in the same boat and your senives a bit ofigned. Like I do everything I can so that my friends and family that are copying me will not come and get angry and that um, I will make my own money grow and then copy us see the same results and y if that fail, it fails. And then what many people do is they copy two or three different popular investors and also pick some assets. Some people like to pick one crypto and a few stocks. Then then you sort of see people build their portfolios on the platform like that. And then also you see a lot of people just add money over time either when they have a big windfall or just some people, they just add in some extra money every month when they Receive their salary and they know they don't want to spend all of that. They want to take a portion of it into the stock markets or crypto markets or something like that.

Phil: Do you get any financial gain out of doing this?

Jeppe: Yes. So ETORO has what's called the Popular Investor program. So when you sign up to that you have to live up to certain requirements. I for instance had to take the uh, Charter Institute of securities and Investment so wealth management degree as like an extra certification on top of my education. And you have to have been on the platform for a while, keep your risk score on the platform within certain limits and so forth. And then you get uh, a compensation based off of

00:15:00

Jeppe: the total amount that's copying you on the platform and then you just receive like and payment every month based off of that. So that's the compensation to the Popular investor like me. But copiers don't pay for that directly. When you copy someone you pay the same fees as if you buy something directly. So if you go yourself and say I'm going to buy Apple Inc. You click Apple Inc. And you pay for that or you copy me and you thereby invest in Apple, then that's going to be the same.

Phil: How volatile have your returns been over the period of time?

Jeppe: So that's part of why uh, I've been one of the most copied is that they's been quite stable along the line. There's never been a really bad one. The worst one was down by 19% and whenever the market has gone down mine has gone down by less and whenever it's gone up mine has gone up by more. So that's sort of the stability as well. There have been some other people on the platform that have done very well for a while but then also though very poorly and a lot of uh, people that go on the platform and try to find someone to copy, they look quite adversely as that. People do really, really care about that sort of long term track ro cur of decent returns and especially no major like uh, declines. I think that's there.

Phil: We'll get onto the risk aspect very soon. But I just wanted to ask as well, do you look at markets all over the world? Are there any specific markets that you exclude or are you looking for companies, good companies everywhere?

Jeppe: I mean uh, so Russia is excluded now because of sanctions so it's technically not possible for me to buy any Russian shares. And then there are some other ones where directly accessible or you can't pick the individual stocks. So those are uh, somewhat excluded in that way. Other than that, I would be interested in something anywhere. And I'm very much against the approach of having like, you know, many people use a stock screener. And I really hate those where people going and say, like, I want profit to be more than this and the growth to be more than this, and I want it to be bigger than this and I want. And now it needs to tick all of these boxes for sure. With that approach, you end up with a stock that's terrible for some other reason not covered by your filter. Like they're getting sued and they're about to pay a big, big, big fine. And that wasn't in your filter system there. You're much better off saying, like, right, it's fine. This company has a big red flag. But you are okay with that red flag. You've looked under the red flag, you've seen, actually, it's fine. I'm happy with that. And if you want a good discount on a company that needs to be something that others are a little bit worried about, potentially that's at least one good way. So I don't think you can just sort of like, uh, make this checklist for a good stock. You have to weigh them and say, how bad is that actually? Okay, yeah, that's bad, but how bad? Okay, it's a little bit bad, but actually it's a big discount, then you're fine.

Phil: And what's your typical holding period for companies?

Jeppe: The average is two to three years. And whenever I invest, basically the ideal holding period is forever. I'm not buying it because I believe someone will come tomorrow or next week or next year and buy it from me at a higher price. I'm buying it because I evaluate that the total profits it can generate and the dividends it can give back to investors for the whole lifetime of the business is worthwhile paying that price of the business today. I don't care what the price was last year or two years ago. I, uh, really care about that. That's the price I'd be paying today, or that's the price I'd be getting if I'm selling my stock today compared with what that company is going to deliver back over its entire lifetime. So it's a very different approach, sort of if the stock goes down. It depends for me on right there's been something bad happening potentially. But that doesn't tell me that it's now time to sell a buy. It just tells me that, oh yeah, if the half the company burned down and the price has gone down by half, it's like, oh, okay, so I'm basically getting the same amount of company for the price. So nothing's changed from an investment perspective. That's my main philosophy. It's really taken from that Warren Buffett style value investing. You have to value what the company is really worth and compare that with the price and buy companies that are worth a lot more than their price would indicate.

Phil: There's a lot of services that we see advertised all over the Internet and social media about trading and trading options and doing kind of stuff that's quite dangerous is you're actually acting like a fund manager really, aren't you?

Jeppe: Um, there are many, many different types of funds. So I invest primarily in stocks and I built a diversified portfolio that's divers photography across different business models and across different industries. Business models is especially important. That's one that's often overlooked. I oftenimes see professional portfolios where I'm like, right, all of these companies are about to get annihilated by Amazon. So it doesn't matter. They're in different countries, in different like they're all facing the same big threat. So you didn't safeguard against that particular scenario. So that's sort of the. And every day I'm looking for ways I can potentially have a higher average return at more or less the same risk or a way I can find a way actually I'm getting the same return with a lower risk. So that's the constant exercise. I don't use any leverage, I don't do any shorting and I don't do any day, uh, trading there. Ultimately all these things have higher fees as well and they're rarely worth the fee. So even if something has moved up by a percent, it's like, right, but is it worth for me now to pay that fee for that difference? Oftentimes not. So, uh, yeah, I prefer to analyze for a long, long time and then finally buy the right thing and hold it for a long time and then just sit back and watch it grow, expand, build new factories, pay out dividends and be like, ah, thank God I bought that when it was a smaller company.

Phil: Do dividends pay any role in the returns that you're seeking?

Jeppe: I dislike dividends. If a company is paying out dividends, I like it less. There's

00:20:00

Jeppe: uh, a little exception for some companies like Facebook for instance, or Meta that pay out a very, very small dividend, which is basically only so that the re not so smart investors that use those screeners when they tick that things they're like, oh, I only want dividends, then it'll technically be a dividend stock and then they can edit in. Or if you have a portfolio and it's a dividend portfolio, you like, oh, it's technically a dividend stock, I can have it in. So I'm like, okay, yeah, yeah, uh, you get away with that one. But otherwise paying out dividends for companies is usually suboptimal for the investor because you get the dividend at uh, it's not random time, but it's not a time of your choice. And when you get that, maybe there's a tax impact. The worst case scenario is that you are, uh, living in a high tax country. Microsoft pays out a huge bumper dividend at a time you didn't need it. You take that money, you pay taxes on it and you invest it right back in Microsoft. You're like, wow, you just spent all this administrative work to give me money. I had to pay taxes on it and then I had to spend time investing that back in. Like that's not helping me at all. So I much prefer companies that just manage the cash flow to and from investors via buybacks. That's a much better way of doing it. Or companies ideally that don't give anything back and just keep reinvesting it. It's ultimately, in my view, bad sign for the CEO that he is not feeling capable of beating the market with a bigger business. Saying that this is where my skills are limited to. I don't think we can grow further. I think this money must be given back to the investors. I'm like, no, Mark Zuckerberg, I gave you all this money. If something go out and buy another company, expand the business, start a new line of products, develop a new app, just take my money and go make it bigger. Uh, don't be giving me back small dividends over time. That's, I'll still invest in dividend companies at the right price, but it's not something that it giving me dividends that's like, that gets them the minus in my.

Phil: Yeah, you must have noticed this being in Australia now for the last couple of months. How much Australians seem to like dividend payers. You know, where there's 78, 80% dividend payout ratios and so forth.

Jeppe: I think everybody likes dividends, but they shouldn't. Or at least too many people like dividends more than they should.

Phil: Because really it comes back to capital allocation, isn't it? It's how you can use that capital. The best way to improve shareholder returns. That's really what you're looking for, isn't it?

Jeppe: Exactly.

Phil: Are there any dangers for people coming in to start copy trading?

Jeppe: There's certainly risks involved. There are people that lose all of their money investing, especially the ones that use a lot of leverage to focus on one crypto that's very, you know, m and maybe that can go very well, but it's also a uh, very easy way to see your account hit zero. And even if you do a very conservative investment portfolio, you try to make it as conservative as possible, there'll still be lots of risks involved. Also, sometimes some portfolios that people think are very conservative turns out they aren't like people that invest only in bonds and bond funds, but then suddenly there's a lot of inflation and the real value of that portfolio suddenly a lot lower. If you have a lot of lot of stocks from different countries and you have maybe you even have a mix of real estate funds on EORO and bonds and stocks and you've really done as much as you can to try to keep the risk down. But even then there are things that can happen. And even if you knew the position of every photon in the universe, there's probably still something that could happen that would be out of your scope there. So there's a uh, out of investment den. It's not in avoiding risk entirely. S figuring out how much risk you actually want to take and understanding the trade offs that okay. Actually if I lose out to inflation year after year after year after year after year, that's not great. If I take a risk that can also backfire, could also go well what is like okay, but it's actually likely to go that well in those scenarios and only that poorly in those scenarios. So overall I'm okay with taking that risk. And in life in general it's better to take some risks for most people. In most situations you just have to figure out taking the right risks. And there are s stupid ways where you're saying you're just wasting your money here. There's also ways of re saying like this is a sensible risk you're taking here. It's not that it's not risky, but it's clever. People take this risk. People that have studied finance and work investment, they are taking this risk. Like this is a risk that people can sensibly be taking. So that's sort of the yah.

Phil: So tell us about your risk management process in constructing your portfolio. How do you approach that?

Jeppe: Yeah, so there's basically two approaches. I have my own and then there is etorros. So Whenever I make any change to the portfolio, it has to be good according to both methodologies. So for my own methodology, I look at how different companies can perform in different scenarios and then try to construct a portfolio where even in some of the very bad scenarios, there'd be some companies that are probably doing well and thus minimizing my losses. In those scenarios, Etoro does an automatic calculation that gives you a risk score, which is a number between 1 and 10. If you have, as a popular investor, 10, I think you get immediately kicked out of the program and people can't copy you anymore. If you reach 7, I think you get a warning. I've kept mine quite consistently between 3 and 5. Now at a 4, then they do it based off of a sort of historical view of how prices have correlated with each other. So that's a different way. But ultimately it's fine to have both approaches. And sometimes it's like, right, I can't buy any more on that because of this. I can't buy any more than that because of that. And then that's sort of a good way to constantly keep an eye on the risk.

Phil: How much time do you spend on this? Does it consume a lot of your time? I know that you were saying before we started recording that you're here in Australia, you're having a bit of a holiday,

00:25:00

Phil: but, you know, there could be an announcement from the United States, from the president, which could suddenly have you scrambling to get back into management again. How much of your life does it consume?

Jeppe: Yeah, so from Monday to Thursday, I work more or less from my wake up to I go to bed. Then Friday I take like a half day, and then on weekends I work two or three hours. And when I have a holiday, I also work two or three hours per day. So there's never like a day where I don't work. There's never a day where, uh, I don't check the market and see what's going on and evaluate if there's something I need to do immediately. And that also means there's some kinds of holidays I can't take. I wouldn't be climbing Mount ever out of Internet connection su certainly for several days in a row or something like that. And then when I'm traveling, what I often do is I work Monday to Friday and then those little bits on Saturday, Sunday, and then see something on the weekend. So now I have two months in Australia, so I'll just be working Monday to Fridays and then seeing probably one thing each weekend. And then that's sort of how I'll be seeing Australia without really leaving my but most I have had many times where people ask me, oh, I'm like, o I'm in Athens. Oh, that must be wonderful. Like, right. But I haven't left my hotel room for like two weeks. I've just been sitting here coding. So it's not always that the location, exotic location means that I get out much.

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Phil: How many stocks would be in your portfolio at. At any particular time?

Jeppe: It's usually between 50 and 60. So that's sort of w. That's a.

Phil: Lot range s a lot to think about, a lot to manage.

Jeppe: Well, I think about and manage even more, uh, think about even more stocks than that. Those are just the ones that are in the portfolio. But I also know when you analyze a company in a new industry for the first time, there's a lot of newer, uh, metrics. You have to understand a lot of new, uh, technologies and terms and suppliers and all that. But then when you get like the third company in industry, you're like, okay, that's just like that. And that's just like that. Oh, ye. I see. They structured this a little bit differently, but it's a little bit the same and then goes fast and fast and faster, basically.

Phil: So what if you get it wrong? Because no one can get everything right all the time. What's your process for getting rid of something that's not contributing enough or actually bringing down portfolio returns?

Jeppe: So sort of there's nothing really I can do about getting something wrong because that's already been in the past. Maybe learned from it, but there's a million other things I can learn from as well. So that just sucks when that happens. An examl was for instance, that I had inv. I knew natural gas was going to be really big and I bought then a very cheap big gas field in Russia. But then of course that got hit by the sanctions. So then I lost out that thankfully I had invested a lot in aerospace and defense. So then I gained a lot from that. And that sort of more than outweighed that. But that's sort of like, oh my God, if I had split that investment across the Russian and the American, I would have made a lot on that hypothesis in the American bit. But because I put everything in that one pool, it's like so that was just a stupid mistake effectively. And I had a few others like that as well. And sometimes that leaves me something like right o okay, if I see something like that again, I'm just going to split it at least and not just go that much into the single one. In terms of when I sell something, that doesn't matter to me toom all whether that's sort of failed in the past. If something's gone down a little, up a lot, that has no impact on my decision to invest today. Every day is day zero. How can I make the best portfolio today? Most days the answer is the same as yesterday, but it's ultimately always from now onwards we're looking. So if a company was amazing in the past and the stock kept going up, well that tells me nothing about where it's going to go in the future. What matters is what is the price, what point did it reach and where do I think it should be based off its total valuation? If a company has invented new technology that makes it twice as valuable and the price has only gone up by 50%, I'll be looking at. Even though it's increased by 50%, I would look at it as being relatively cheaper compared to how good the company is. And uh, I sometimes use the analogyies like you've been sent to the supermarket to buy 1 liter of Coca Cola for $1 and then when you come that they are told, oh we don't have that anymore, we only have 2 liter colas for $2. 2. You're like oh no, is that twice as expensive then? Or is it like ah, uh, yeah, you're paying twice as much but you're also getting twice as much. So you sort of have to take that into account.

Phil: So how many stocks in your portfolio have been there for like almost since the start? Is there anything in there that have been there since the start? Because you did say you wanted to hold onto them for the long term. Like Warren Buffett.

Jeppe: Yeah, I mean some of the very earliest ones, Facebook, O Meta and Nvidia, they've been along. I've had uh, I don't have Tesla anymore. I had that since 2016 though. I had that for many years. Paance here I still have, I had that from the day of the ipo. But some of them have also adjusted position sizes along the way. Some I have gotten entirely out of and back into. And I also bought a lot of uh, you know, Cannopis stocks when it was very, very early days for that. That grew up big. Then I sold it and Then I was like, oh, now I learned everything about, you know, the cannabis industry and now, you know, now I've sold home my shares. All this knowledge is wasted. But then some years later it came back. It's like the price had gone down. I like, ah, okay, actually now I can go back into this.

00:30:00

Jeppe: Now I'm out again on that. So there's some that sort of have come and gone along the way and that's also bit an additional one. I didn't just pick all the right companies. I have also been able to sort of adjust my amount in them over time to dodge some things and benefit from some differences.

Phil: Palantir is an interesting one, isn't it? Because there's a lot of memes going around on uh, Facebook and an in investing forums about what does Palantir actually do. Can you answer that question?

Jeppe: Yeah, and I got a very good explanation very early on from someone I know whose organization was using Palantty at the time. And he was blown away by this tool and they was like, oh my God, we can do all these things with it. So at that time I was like, okay, this is actually a uh, really, really powerful tool. Ultimately its power is from taking a lot of different kinds of Data like your PowerPoint presentation J Excels in your very, very complex data structures and making all of that easily accessible, but not just easily accessible to everybody. Very sel saying like uh, these person should be able to see that and these people should be able to see that and they should not be able to see this because if these two people, they can both see this, they can triangulate that data and then figure this thing out. So it need to be very smart aboutiving who access to what data. If you do that in a smart way, then you have sort of a really powerful product that's quite easy to use. They don't sot just deliver that product and people have to figure it out. That's part of a good thing. So they send these forward deployed engineers out to work closely with the customers and they get really ingrained in there. The unfortunate side of that is that that also makes it kind of like a consulting firm. That growth isn't based off of a purely fixed cost where, you know, if you have one IT tool that's just working and with a small team to operate that the more customers you have, they're just adding more revenue without increasing the cost much. But when you have to send out more engineers for more customers and those customers need more engineers, that's obviously more costs. There's a big potential for doing some of that with AI in the future. And then because they're so ingrained, many places using more AI can potentially reduce their cost quite a lot, yet keeping that revenue very high. And that's sort of the long term bul case for them. Then they've also been very smart in getting so well aligned early on with the Trump administration. That's sort of getting a lot of. Yeah, yeah. Where others are getting challenged by the Trump administration there instead getting, you know like patted on the shoulder and getting some help.

Phil: Yeah. Always good to have the ear of the President of the United States in any business I'd say, wouldn't it?

Jeppe: Definitely.

Phil: So have you uh, found out or do you know anything about the people that are copying your investing style? I'll call it investing style cause it's not really trading, trading's really the wrong term for it. But that have been able to then learn from you and then go out on their own to do something similar or to maybe even take another view of the world.

Jeppe: There are many other pors as well that take a look at what I'm doing both in, you know, what I'm writing posts about and how I'm communicating and what I'm investing in. So certainly they uh, also eor often highlights me as an example of, you know, how to do it for different aspects. So I'm always happy when they do that. And there are others that I know started copying me and then branch out into doing more stuff on their own. You also see sometimes, you know, suddenly when um, some copy has leftnce when crypto really picked off they're like, right, I'm happy for my money to be able but now I want to catch this crypto wave instead. And uh, there also others sort of split it out but I'm not aware of anyone who like sort of like uh, directly copied my style and then went off with that. I think everybody's is also actually sort of difficult to just see from the outside exactly what someone's doing. Like I could also say like I want to be like Warren Buffett, but I can't 100% like get inside his brain. I can't like I have tried to sort of look back, okay, what actually explains the different investment decisions along the time and whatnot. But every ultimately you got to probably do your own thing and you just take a few good lessons from some other successful investors where you're like, okay, I learned a lot from Terry Smith, the British investor, and initially said basic mos I Was like, right, either'm, um. If I have my own idea for how to do something, I'm gonna, you know, do my own thing and if I don't know what to do, I'm just going to copy what Terry Smith is doing. So then I sort of had a baseline for to add to and I think that's probably good. So you can find someone and you can be like, okay, I'm just going to emulate them for whenever I don't know what to do. And then when I know what to do, I'll do my own thing.

Phil: So it sounds like there's a lot of interactions with the people that are copying you as well. Because you mentioned before that some have even come to you with ideas. Is that the case? There's a bit of back and forth there, yeah.

Jeppe: So with the 28,000 people copying me, I get questions every day and comments and uh, people who direct my attention in different places. Then we have lots of etoro events. We just had one here in Melbourne where, you know, at such an event I get to meet many different of our diamond clients and they work in different industries and have different ideas and that's always very interesting. I always go away from any kind of event like that with several good ideas.

Phil: Can you just run us through a specific example of what you learned from navigating a challenging market period and what you learned from it?

Jeppe: Yeah. So one very challenging one was the COVID period. Immediately, the first time I heard about COVID coming out from China there I got extremely worried. And because I immediately contacted various doctors in my family to have the numbers reviewed. And I'm used to looking at numbers from China and they're not always completely accurate. Quite often they're a little bit exaggerated or

00:35:00

Jeppe: notxaggerated in whichever direction is beneficial. So I thought what if these numbers that are already looking bad are actually even worse? And then immediately I got my family moved out of London to uh, not be in the epicene of where there would be a bigict success. And then I just had to read, you know, biology books every night and start, you know, going through everything and figuring out like, what are the impacts of this, what does this change in terms of valuation for companies? And I quite quickly zoomed in on work from home being the big theme there and then just ensure that I had the companies that were good for work from home and that the ones that were good for going out and then sort of I made it through a nice trouble time there. But I guess the key lesson from that Is that you know, when there is some major event or some major successss, something like you just have to absolutely work hard, work late, increase your speed and do everything and then you sort of, you can get ahead of things. Uh, yeah, but yeah, that was a rough time I think.

Phil: So what advice would you give to investors who are looking to follow or copy a popular investor like yourself?

Jeppe: So I think it's best to start by downloading the Etoro app and using a demo account where you get the 100,000 fict dollars and then you can sort of make all the mistakes you want without it costing you anything. Then in terms of picking out someone to copy, you can look at different popular investors and see the track records, see what they've been saying through the time. Was that thing they said a few years ago actually smart and proved right or was that a uh, bogus and you. Because it can both be that the portfolio appeals to you or the track record. It can also be the communication style. I think some people they like. Right. I like that. I also understand what's going on with my portfolio because the guy is communicating about why he's making these changes or uh, why he did that thing. So some combination of that. Then some people, they just choose to do everything themselves. Pick their own stock, pick. Some people choose to copy one guy like me or someone else and many choose to copy a few different popular investors, buy a few ETFs and just make a broader range of things on the platform.

Phil: Is there a recommended minimum amount to start with?

Jeppe: So in general you can start with a very low amount like dollar if you to copy me the minimum is 20,000 US dollars. So that's quite a bit steeper depending on how much people invest there. You also get some different categories that gives you like to attend the events and whatnot like that. But there's also a, ah, fine practice to start with a very small amount and then sort of see how that's going. And then you can always add more later. Many people add more funds every month when they get the salary, some whenever they get a lump summer. But that it's completely fine to sort of get started with a very small amount.

Phil: But if they were starting with a small amount they wouldn't be able to copy you for example.

Jeppe: No, no, no, no. Then you can copy someone else or you can build your own portfolio with uh, your own selection of stocks and other assets.

Phil: How does that work? How does that tier arrangement work?

Jeppe: Yeah, so there's just different tiers that unlock different benefits. If you're on the highest the diamond category, you have to have a minimum of US$250,000 invested. Then you can get a higher interest rate on the deposits and you can get to attend some events and you get some subscriptions and there's some other benefits like that that can make it worthwhile. If you're more than US$50,000, I think that's the TF for Platinum plus, although I don't remember the exact levels there. But then you can now go in and see what kind of benefits are unlocked at the different stages.

Phil: So how can viewers and listeners find out more about you Assuming Etoro, but you're on social media as well?

Jeppe: Yes, I use Twitter, LinkedIn and I'm on YouTube as well. But my number one thing is eToro. I'm on Etoro every day and I get lots of questions on Etoro and anything I would post on any other place I would post on Etoro as well. So Etoro is also kind of like a bit of a, ah, stock platform with social media integrated in that people are writing so many different comments and questions to each other and you can read all of that in there.

Phil: Jeppe, thank you very much for joining me today.

Jeppe: Thank you very much, Phil. It's been a pleasure.

00:38:49

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